“A quick check at myplates.com reveals that the number plate ALBO is still available,” writes Peter Riley of Penrith. “Our new PM won’t be needing it. If he wants to duck down to the shops he’s got ‘C1’ parked in the driveway. Apropos ‘C1’, on the 15th of April 1946, it was reported that number plate ‘C1’ fell off the prime minister’s Buick somewhere near Yass but was never found. I’d like to think that it’s still gracing the front of a farmer’s little grey Ferguson tractor.”
Chips Mackinolty of Darwin (NT) thinks that “While corporate bookmakers don’t take bets on such matters, odds on favourite for the Macquarie Dictionary ‘Word of the Year’ must surely be ‘teal’.”
Apparently, people like putting Harold Holt’s name (C8) on swim centres. After completing his tour during the Vietnam War in 1968, Stuart Weller of Nabiac says, “the Australian Army constructed a swimming pool in the ALSG (Australian Logistical Support Group) just behind The Badcoe Club on Back Beach at Vung Tau and named it The Harold Holt Memorial Pool.”
“Caroline Jones was influential in so many ways,” reckons Dave Bertram of Hawks Nest. “One Christmas in the early ’80s, she recommended wrapping the turkey in fatty bacon. An old friend in Woollahra went straight to the butcher to get some and was asked how come there was this big rush on fatty bacon all of a sudden.”
“An ABC political commentator on television recently had both buttons done up on his two-button suit coat,” remarks Tony Hunt of Gordon. “We all know the three-button rule: ‘Sometimes, Always, Never’ so I assume a two-buttoner’s code is ‘Always, Never’. Apparently, this quaint custom was a nod to Edward VII’s large girth rendering the bottom button inoperable.”
Herman Beyersdorf’s tale of the East Berlin pineapple levy (C8) reminded Nola Tucker of Kiama of the time “a German friend travelled up to Berlin after the Wall opened and told us how a compatriot had arrived with a truck full of bananas and was handing them out to people in the street. Such a simple act yet a very emotional time as East Berliners realised they were free at last.”
“When someone tells me they’ll see me anon (C8) I assume they mean that next time we meet they won’t tell me their name,” says David Swain of Glenhaven. “As I get older this becomes more important.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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